I finished reading dune about a week ago and im currently reading dune messiah. In Dune messiah it thrusts you 12 years in the future and the Muad'dib's Jihad is in full swing, my question is why does Paul take part in the Jihad? I understand he feels it as unavoidable but he IS the Muad'dib, Im sure if he told the fremen not to carry on this Jihad then they would not, and it also bugs me that he takes part in this Jihad. I just dont get it.

I don't have the books in front of me, but the campaign(s) following the Battle of Arrakeen would have been clean up operations which snowed balled at least in part into the situation 12 years later. Otherwords, Paul just didn't win the one battle and that was it, he defeated the Sardakaur.

The problem was that if Paul didn't let the Jihad happen humanity would have died out, that was his inner struggle the whole time, he kept looking into the future for any other option, but every future he looked at other than the jihad had humanity go extinct, so he had no choice.

EDIT: also he wasn'tthe Muad'dib, he was just Muad'dib, that's just a name, not a title.

It's been a while since I read the first book, but basically it was something along the lines that humanity had been stagnant for too long, and it was leading to a collapse. The simple act of shaking things up corrected this as I understand it. I'm sure there's a far better answer to that question though.

One of the things Frank Herbert was big on was the idea that there's no such thing as a perfect government or system of any kind, trying to acheive perfection and stay there will 100% of the time lead to stagnation and collapse (he was big into history, almost became a historian actually). As such, change and adjustment are always needed, even things like war and famine and epidemics can in fact be good things when looked at in terms of the "long-term" view of humanity.

rudy4269 wrote:I finished reading dune about a week ago and im currently reading dune messiah. In Dune messiah it thrusts you 12 years in the future and the Muad'dib's Jihad is in full swing, my question is why does Paul take part in the Jihad? I understand he feels it as unavoidable but he IS the Muad'dib, Im sure if he told the fremen not to carry on this Jihad then they would not, and it also bugs me that he takes part in this Jihad. I just dont get it.

Keep reading, and reading and reading.

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"... the mystery of life isn't a problem to solve but a reality to experience."

“There is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.”

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Actually, Paul didn't see the threat of extinction but the empire was in an obvious state of stagnation to which humanity as a whole reacted to with the Jihad. That comes in later books.

Paul had to choose between two future visions while on the run with Jessica, before meeting the Femen; surrender to the Harkonnens which was unthinkable, or choose the Jihad. Those were the only two options for his own survival. As an Atreides, surrender to the Harkonnens was unthinkable so that left the Jihad. Once he chose that path there would be no stopping it, even if he died.

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

Really? I thought there was a fair bit of him seeing humanity go extinct in the first book, I remember that even from my first read. I really have to dig up my PDFs so I can quote properly when discussing stuff like this, it's tough from memory.

Jessica paled. "Is there no alternative?""Alternative? A Bene Gesserit should ask that?""I ask only what you see in the future with your superior abilities.""I see in the future what I've seen in the past. You well know the patternof our affairs, Jessica. The race knows its own mortality and fears stagnationof its heredity. It's in the bloodstream -- the urge to mingle genetic strainswithout plan. The Imperium, the CHOAM Company, all the Great Houses, they arebut bits of flotsam in the path of the flood."

Paul chooses the Jihad:

"If you're not the Kwisatz Haderach," Jessica said, "what--""You couldn't possibly know," he said. "You won't believe it until you seeit."And he thought: I'm a seed.He suddenly saw how fertile was the ground into which he had fallen, andwith this realization, the terrible purpose filled him, creeping through theempty place within, threatening to choke him with grief.He had seen two main branchings along the way ahead--in one he confronted anevil old Baron and said: "Hello, Grandfather." The thought of that path and whatlay along it sickened him.The other path held long patches of grey obscurity except for peaks ofviolence. He had seen a warrior religion there, a fire spreading across theuniverse with the Atreides green and black banner waving at the head of fanaticlegions drunk on spice liquor. Gurney Halleck and a few others of his father'smen--a pitiful few--were among them, all marked by the hawk symbol from theshrine of his father's skull."I can't go that way," he muttered. "That's what the old witches of yourschools really want.""I don't understand you, Paul," his mother said.He remained silent, thinking like the seed he was, thinking with the raceconsciousness he had first experienced as terrible purpose. He found that he nolonger could hate the Bene Gesserit or the Emperor or even the Harkonnens. Theywere all caught up in the need of their race to renew its scattered inheritance,to cross and mingle and infuse their bloodlines in a great new pooling of genes.And the race knew only one sure way for this--the ancient way, the tried andcertain way that rolled over everything in its path: jihad.Surely, I cannot choose that way, he thought.But he saw again in his mind's eye the shrine of his father's skull and theviolence with the green and black banner waving in its midst.Jessica cleared her throat, worried by his silence. "Then . . . the Fremenwill give us sanctuary?"He looked up, staring across the green-lighted tent at the inbred, patricianlines of her face. "Yes," he said. "That's one of the ways." He nodded. "Yes.They'll call me . . . Muad'Dib, 'The One Who Points the Way.' Yes . . . that'swhat they'll call me."And he closed his eyes, thinking: Now, my father, I can mourn you. And hefelt the tears coursing down his cheeks.

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

Interesting, time for a re-read for me it seems. I was very sure that Paul already knew in the first book that he had a choice between the Jihad and the end of humanity. Maybe I was just thinking of some later conversations that come up in later books that I won't go into now, because I don't want any spoilers for our new friend here!

A Thing of Eternity wrote:Interesting, time for a re-read for me it seems. I was very sure that Paul already knew in the first book that he had a choice between the Jihad and the end of humanity. Maybe I was just thinking of some later conversations that come up in later books that I won't go into now, because I don't want any spoilers for our new friend here!

This is the difference that made Leto's choice holy.

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

"Leto felt that his body had become a dry shell like that abandoned by an insect. He knew this shell: it was one with the society which had built upon the melange trade and its Religion of the Golden Elixir. It was emptied by its excesses. Muad'Dib's high aims had fallen into wizardry which was enforced by the military arm of Auqaf. Maud'Dib's religion had another name now; it was Shien-san-Shao, an Ixian label (Chinese beer ) which designated the intensity and insanity of those who thought they could bring the universe to paradise at the point of a crysknife."

By the time Pual took over, the Atreides were all but nonexistent only a handful had survived. So, he had to depend on Freeman, who were described by Ghani? or Leto? as still half savages. Not exactly the best administrators of Atreides Law.

Ultimately, it says in Children of Dune, sorry can't find the quote at the moment, that Paul accepted the religious mantel for Chani's sake.

As opposed to Leto who had to rebuild a cadre of Atreides administrators and abandoned the Freeman to museum relics.

It's worth noting (hopefully I didn't miss it come up already), that the jihad would've happened without him by the time he knew what was happening. It was a choice between staying alive and trying to direct it somewhat, or letting it take on it's own life.

He really locked himself into that path from early on once he started manipulating the Fremen.

"If he was here to discuss Dune, he sure as hell picked a dumb way to do it." -Omphalos

Mr. Teg wrote:Ultimately, it says in Children of Dune, sorry can't find the quote at the moment, that Paul accepted the religious mantel for Chani's sake.

I think I quote this chapter more than any other in the series:

"It is sad that you were never really Fremen," Leto said. "We Fremen knowhow to commission the arifa. Our judges can choose between evils. It's alwaysbeen that way for us.""Fremen, is it? Slaves of the fate you helped to make?" Paul stepped towardLeto, reached out in an oddly shy movement, touched Leto's sheathed arm,explored up it to where the membrane exposed an ear, then the cheek and,finally, the mouth. "Ahhhh, that is your own flesh yet," he said. "Where willthat flesh take you?" He dropped his hand."Into a place where humans may create their futures from instant toinstant.""So you say. An Abomination might say the same.""I'm not Abomination, though I might've been," Leto said. "I saw how it goeswith Alia. A demon lives in her, father. Ghani and I know that demon: it's theBaron, your grandfather."Paul buried his face in his hands. His shoulders shook for a moment, then helowered his hands and his mouth was set in a harsh line. "There is a curse uponour House. I prayed that you would throw that ring into the sand, that you'ddeny me and run away to make . . . another life. It was there for you.""At what price?"After a long silence, Paul said: "The end adjusts the path behind it. Justonce I failed to fight for my principles. Just once. I accepted the Mahdinate. Idid it for Chani, but it made me a bad leader."Leto found he couldn't answer this. The memory of that decision was therewithin him.

Bonus:

"I cannot lie to you any more than I could lie to myself," Paul said. "Iknow this. Every man should have such an auditor. I will only ask this onething: is the Typhoon Struggle necessary?""It's that or humans will be extinguished."Paul heard the truth in Leto's words, spoke in a low voice whichacknowledged the greater breadth of his son's vision. "I did not see that amongthe choices.""I believe the Sisterhood suspects it," Leto said. "I cannot accept anyother explanation of my grandmother's decision."

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

if I understood it right, the second part of the question was about the actual combat-operations of the Jihad,during the twelve years between books - it's inferred (and somewhere directly stated, unless it's in the DE)that all the Great Houses did not immediately accept the new Atreides Emperor; you can also assume thatthere would be "renegade" warmasters of the Houses that would not accept Paul even if the Houses had"officially" done so (large forces on remote "outpost" planets, dug-in, no way off-planet without the Guild,not willing to surrender, fighting to the "last man"; also consider the resistance to the establishment of"Fremen Religion" as the official State Religion of the Atreides Empire (hence the term "Jihad") - Frankleft those years unchronicled primarily, I think, because he didn't really have a lot of interest in writing the "military" aspect; he set out the perimeters of the situation, and allowed a space for the imaginationof the reader to fill. (See the "McNelly" interview) (or, imagine it like the "setting" for the Warhammer 40Kgame & books - Fremen are the Space Marines, "pacifying" thousands of planets)(Once the war of revolutionis complete, the never-ending wars of counter-revolution begin ...)

................ I exist only to amuse myself ................

I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know how to fully interact with people. ~ "Spice Grandson" (Bryon Merrit) 08 June 2008

It's also safe to assume if Paul had just ordered the Fremen to stop, they would have had him killed. The Fremen saw themselves as enacting vengeance against a universe that had enslaved and exploited them and their planet for thousands of years.

Superdog wrote:It's also safe to assume if Paul had just ordered the Fremen to stop, they would have had him killed. The Fremen saw themselves as enacting vengeance against a universe that had enslaved and exploited them and their planet for thousands of years.

They might not have gone so far as to kill him but they would have gone anyway.

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

Superdog wrote:It's also safe to assume if Paul had just ordered the Fremen to stop, they would have had him killed. The Fremen saw themselves as enacting vengeance against a universe that had enslaved and exploited them and their planet for thousands of years.

They might not have gone so far as to kill him but they would have gone anyway.

That's the key. Throughout Dune especially he sees very clearly that the forces he set in motion will continue beyond his death, and that his death at certain times would ultimately lead to even more violence.

I don't think the author should make the reader do that much work - Kevin J. AndersonWe think we've updated 'Dune' for a modern readership without dumbing it down.- Brian HerbertThere’s an unwritten compact between you and the reader. If someone enters a bookstore and sets down hard earned money(energy) for your book, you owe that person some entertainment and as much more as you can give. - Frank Herbert

Superdog wrote:It's also safe to assume if Paul had just ordered the Fremen to stop, they would have had him killed. The Fremen saw themselves as enacting vengeance against a universe that had enslaved and exploited them and their planet for thousands of years.

They might not have gone so far as to kill him but they would have gone anyway.

That's the key. Throughout Dune especially he sees very clearly that the forces he set in motion will continue beyond his death, and that his death at certain times would ultimately lead to even more violence.

Yes, specifically the fight with Feyd, even if he'd lost the jihad would have rolled on.

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

They will mark how I parted from Chani, how I greet Stilgar -- every move I make this day. Live or die, it is a legend. I must not die. Then it will be only legend and nothing to stop the jihad.

Muad'Dib from whom all blessings flow, he thought, and it was the bitterest thought of his life. They sense that I must take the throne, he thought. But they cannot know I do it to prevent the jihad.

They're accustomed to seeing the future, Paul thought. In this place and time they're blind . . . even as I am. And he sampled the time-winds, sensing the turmoil, the storm nexus that now focused on this moment place. Even the faint gaps were closed now. Here was the unborn jihad, he knew. Here was the race consciousness that he had known once as his own terrible purpose. Here was reason enough for a Kwisatz Haderach or a Lisan al-Gaib or even the halting schemes of the Bene Gesserit. The race of humans had felt its own dormancy, sensed itself grown stale and knew now only the need to experience turmoil in which the genes would mingle and the strong new mixtures survive. All humans were alive as an unconscious single organism in this moment, experiencing a kind of sexual heat that could override any barrier. And Paul saw how futile were any efforts of his to change any smallest bit of this. He had thought to oppose the jihad within himself, but the jihad would be. His legions would rage out from Arrakis even without him. They needed only the legend he already had become. He had shown them the way, given them mastery even over the Guild which must have the spice to exist.

The old Truthsayer, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, had her own view of the hidden meaning in Paul's words now. She glimpsed the jihad and said: "You cannot loose these people upon the universe!" "You will think back to the gentle ways of the Sardaukar!" Paul snapped. "You cannot," she whispered. "You're a Truthsayer," Paul said. "Review your words."

Terrible purpose brushed him. It was a coriolis wind in his soul. It whistled through the framework of his being. His body knew things then never learned in consciousness. "Chani, beloved," he whispered, "do you know what I'd spend to end the Jihad -- to separate myself from the damnable godhead the Qizarate forces onto me?" She trembled. "You have but to command it," she said. "Oh, no. Even if I died now, my name would still lead them. When I think of the Atreides name tied to this religious butchery . . . " "But you're the Emperor! You've --" "I'm a figurehead. When godhead's given, that's the one thing the so-called god no longer controls." A bitter laugh shook him. He sensed the future looking back at him out of dynasties not even dreamed. He felt his being cast out, crying, unchained from the rings of fate -- only his name continued. "I was chosen," he said. "Perhaps at birth . . . certainly before I had much say in it. I was chosen." "Then un-choose," she said. His arm tightened around her shoulder. "In time, beloved. Give me yet a little time."

I'll yield up myself, he thought. I'll rush out while I yet have the strength, fly through a space a bird might not find. It was a useless thought, and he knew it. The Jihad would follow his ghost.

Stilgar removed from the folder a note on instroy paper. "One of our agents sent this memorandum from a caucus of the CHOAM minority." He read the cipher in a flat voice: "The Throne must be stopped in its attempt at a power monopoly. We must tell the truth about the Atreides, how he maneuvers behind the triple sham of Landsraad legislation, religious sanction and bureaucratic efficiency." He pushed the note back into the folder. "A constitution," Chani murmured. Paul glanced at her, back to Stilgar. Thus the Jihad falters, Paul thought, but not soon enough to save me. The thought produced emotional tensions. He remembered his earliest visions of the Jihad-to-be, the terror and revulsion he'd experienced. Now, of course, he knew visions of greater terrors. He had lived with the real violence. He had seen his Fremen, charged with mystical strength, sweep all before them in the religious war. The Jihad gained a new perspective. It was finite, of course, a brief spasm when measured against eternity, but beyond lay horrors to overshadow anything in the past. All in my name, Paul thought.

Disengage . . . disengage . . . disengage, he thought. What would happen if he took Chani, just picked up and left with her, sought sanctuary on Tupile? His name would remain behind. The Jihad would find new and more terrible centers upon which to turn. He'd be blamed for that, too. He felt suddenly fearful that in reaching for any new thing he might let fall what was most precious, that even the slightest noise from him might send the universe crashing back, receding until he never could recapture any piece of it.

That terrible vision of a lost moon. The vision suggested a monstrous loss of individual security. Perhaps he'd seen his civilization fall, toppled by its own pretensions. A moon . . . a moon . . . a falling moon. It had taken a massive dose of the spice essence to penetrate the mud thrown up by the tarot. All it had shown him was a falling moon and the hateful way he'd known from the beginning. To buy an end for the Jihad, to silence the volcano of butchery, he must discredit himself. Disengage . . . disengage . . . disengage . . .

From the moment the Jihad had chosen him, he'd felt himself hemmed in by the forces of a multitude. Their fixed purposes demanded and controlled his course. Any delusions of Free Will he harbored now must be merely the prisoner rattling his cage. His curse lay in the fact that he saw the cage. He saw it!

if Paul dies at any blind nexus between the fight with Jamis and his ascension to the Imperial Throne,the Fremen rage out from Dune in His Name, and the Jihad is as horrible as his most dire visions ...

he is the tool the Jihad, which was coming from the moment he led Jessica into the desert to the Fremen,but he is also the brake on its' most horrible excesses ... he found he could not stop the Jihad, but as long as he lived, he could temper it ... after a dozen years, the stored energy in the human race that had beenbuilding the pressure for the Jihad had abated; enough for him to "disengage" ...

no-where here do I see evidence that the Fremen would have "killed Paul" had he tried to stop the Jihad,at any moment ... he was their Messiah; the catch is that no matter what he could have tried, as the FremenMahdi, as the Atreides Emperor, even as the kwisatz haderach, the Jihad would have continued ... in some form,and possibly (likely) taking an even worse turn ...

"Yes," Edric said, "the Jihad is finite. Muad'dib has used his Jihad and --" "He didn't use the Jihad," Scytale said. "The Jihad used him. I think he would've stopped it if he could." "If he could? All he had to do was --" "Oh, be still!" Scytale barked. "You can't stop a mental epidemic. It leaps from person to person across parsecs. It's overwhelmingly contagious. It strikes at the unprotected side, in the place where we lodge the fragments of other such plagues. Who can stop such a thing? Muad'dib hasn't the antidote. The thing has roots in chaos. Can orders reach there?"

................ I exist only to amuse myself ................

I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know how to fully interact with people. ~ "Spice Grandson" (Bryon Merrit) 08 June 2008

"After a long silence, Paul said: "The end adjusts the path behind it. Justonce I failed to fight for my principles. Just once. I accepted the Mahdinate. Idid it for Chani, but it made me a bad leader."

I think this quote has something else in it that is important. One might ask why Paul's only two options were surrendering to the Harkonnens, or else defying them and joining the Fremen. Why could Paul and Jessica not have just tried living in hiding, maybe go off-planet eventually, and live in solitude? The answer is precisely because Paul needed to "fight for [his] principles." This kind of noble upbringing leads a person to hold principles as his highest aim and comfort. It makes a person believe not only that his actions and thoughts matter, but that they need to be made to matter if others try to deny them. Paul needed to feel he was doing something important and not just puttering around; that is in his breeding.

"It is sad that you were never really Fremen," Leto said. "We Fremen knowhow to commission the arifa. Our judges can choose between evils. It's alwaysbeen that way for us.""Fremen, is it? Slaves of the fate you helped to make?" Paul stepped towardLeto, reached out in an oddly shy movement, touched Leto's sheathed arm,explored up it to where the membrane exposed an ear, then the cheek and,finally, the mouth. "Ahhhh, that is your own flesh yet," he said. "Where willthat flesh take you?" He dropped his hand."Into a place where humans may create their futures from instant toinstant."

This thought, which I believe is the principle goal of the Golden Path and the Scattering (necessitating the avoidance of humanity's destruction first), is in my opinion the primary thesis of the Dune series. Why should Paul want to create some fancy future from two bad alternatives, rather than give up on his own future? Because every person, especially those of noble character, want to make a real future for themselves and for others; to not have to abstain from making choices that have lasting effects. We can call Paul vain for needing to do great things, but in that case we should all be vain in this way, to feel that our lives are of terrible importance and not to be shunted away in favor of others who want to make our decisions for us. Leto II states firmly that he wants a future where each person may live instant to instant, making real decisions, and not the fake choice where some ruler gives you a few "options" to pick from all of which re-affirm his rulership. No more stagnation, no more of the same old oligarchy having control. No more of the future being decided in advance by a few and depriving the rest of their right to make choices for their lives. I'll make a separate thread about the political implications of this later, but for now it's enough to say that Paul went along with the jihad because he correctly believed that he and his family were important and should not just bow down.